I’m awake wandering if the wind is making the thudding noise, my heart or my neighbour cleaning. When he’s pissed off, he sweeps the floor banging the skirting board repeatedly. He does this because he is a controlling little shit who doesn’t like women ignoring him. Yes, I swapped one wanker for another, what’s new.

I’ve had a chest infection since April due to white mould. I have only recently seen it. I turned my lights on and saw what appeared to be oil splodges… running my finger over them proved they were not (why would they be in a bedroom?).

I’m wheezing, bubbling, having a break with reality and a heart attack all at once… Think I’ll distract myself with Star Trek. It was the episode where Nelix has an existential crisis and contemplates and plans suicide. For fuck sake.

It’s a year since my uncle died, my electric company thinks £280 is fair monthly payment for one loner in a flat. I did some work and I didn’t get paid in the same fortnight as they are deducting the money back off my benefits, which means this month I am £70 down.

Last month I had an interview to prep for, it didn’t happen and thought that I would be sanctioned. My dad is A.W.O.L. since he got a back payment (fine fuck him, but also ouch). And my neck is swollen… is that part of the mould problem, or some fresh fuckery?

My brother is sending me messages about how much he’s struggling financially, and sending songs about giving up, and mate, I can’t even look after my own mental health, please contact the number I gave you… Love you, please don’t kill yourself.

The last straw was the way Star Trek ‘resolved’ this episode. They managed to block Nelix from transporting in to the middle of a nebula… While someone was trying to ‘talk him down’, someone else came looking for him and asked him to help get her little girl to sleep. Whilst the original person reminded him of all the people that needed him, and he decides he won’t kill himself today as “duty calls”.

That is why people kill themselves. Some call it people pleasing, but that belies the very serious effects of being responsible for other peoples happiness. It belies the fact that this is one of the ‘signs’ that abusive people look for in ‘soft targets’ and it completely glosses over the years of self denial that a person has endured before they get to the point where life is not worth living.

This emotional black mail asks the person to self abnegate at the precise moment when they need to find a reason to care for themselves most. Fuck. That. It terrifies me to hear people say they need me… Duty is a dirty word, a slave maker, a soul killer… I learned that when I was trying to find a reason not to transport myself into the middle of a nebula.

Today has been the absolute pits. I went to sign on, because I had to submit a sick note. Apparently, when I’m ill, the general rule of thumb is that life is going to show me how absolutely alone I am. My counselling sessions have ended again. I cant even explain how I feel about that. I have no money in my account (we’ll get to that later) so I couldn’t afford to delay handing in my sick note.

The absolute last straw came after 14 unanswered telephone calls. I just wanted to give in, fortunately, I was too ill to do anything except cry myself to sleep. I woke about 1 1/2 later and ate three meals in one go. I will come to regret this…

My advisor said that I needed time off to recuperate, but I have done anything but. My account was closed, because, I’m ill and this is what the tory suicide plan is all about. Lets fuck with this person and see if they kill themselves. When my money didn’t go in, I rang to see where it was. Whoops, they said, we closed your claim. No reason, just cos.

Apparently, rebuilding my claim didn’t extend to telling me what they had done, so I had no idea till I didn’t get paid. My rent was due. I borrowed some money, it wasn’t enough. I had to haul arse into town and pay my art fund in to cover rent and council tax. I have no money but I’m not over my planned over draft, the bank still want to pass my account to collections. I have to make my food last at least three more days. There is enough, but it all needs cooking, except hash browns. I post shit on the internet to keep myself awake while they cook. Or send SOS messages that go unheeded.

My doctors kicked me off their service, so I have to find a new one. I keep missing appointments. I’m officially what they call in my trade living a chaotic lifestyle now. Remember I keep being told that I’m ok, and I’m sane and I can cope etc? Right now, my needs are high enough to warrant support… If I applied for help, I would be too well when it finally comes and would be managed off a support list. I know this is a fractured read, but it’s difficult to concentrate and I’m still crying.

I nearly got run over yesterday, by a man on a bike. I asked him if it was worth nearly running me over to get his train. He said, sorry I wasn’t thinking… I just flipped. I said I didn’t want to hear it. But he just kept going on. I just flipped and told him to shut his fucking mouth. He said there was no need to be rude, I said there was no need to ride a bike 20mph on a footpath. He kept on.

I walked right up to him and I asked him how far he wanted to take things. He pointed to the camera on his head, I said good! When you up load that footage, make sure you put the bit where you clip my jumper on too. He momentarily checked himself, and looked around for intervention. I said, I just want you to shut your fucking mouth, dickhead.

He spent the rest of the time speaking to two men about how badly done to he felt, and he either tried or did take a picture of me on his phone. He felt inconvenienced because I didn’t want to hear about his bad day. I thought if you only fucking knew.

A couple of days before, I had a meeting with the family, they want my bank details for my inheritance. Another false call as it happens, with the added bonus of them letting me know they really don’t like me. It was a bit of a kick in the guts to hear my dad join in. I did what I usually do with things I don’t like to hear, I push it away and let it resurface when I’m really down.

I have to walk up a hill to catch a train, and then walk up another hill to get to the doctors. I can’t afford a taxi. My limbs ache because I can’t breathe and I’m coughing like I have consumption. The doctors gave me some antibiotics for a chest and sinus infection, and I want to be ill in bed, but my body wants food and breathing is secondary to paying my rent, etc. I have to cook or go hungry. I’ve eaten hash browns cooked on a George foreman grill. It’s all I’ve been able to do. I got home from signing on just worn out. My chest rattling, my nose wheezing and feeling like I was drowning. Then I recall the time I tried to patch things up with my mum…

I was saying something about hate being a strong word, trying to give her an out, and she said, “No, I really *hated* you”. Her face wrinkled and her voice filled with that venomous hatred. So while I was lying in bed crying, trying to find someone to love me, that’s what I had in my head. Even your own mother thinks you are not worthy of love.

Someone finally picked up the phone. It was the Samaritans. They wanted to know if there was anyone I could call for help… I still haven’t stopped crying. I fell asleep crying, I woke up crying, I ate crying, I’m typing this crying… I spent the whole of the phone call crying, till he asked if I ever thought about suicide. I laughed and said everyday, but don’t worry, I’m too spiteful to kill myself: my family aren’t getting a fucking penny of the inheritance I don’t have. I was still crying through the laughter and said thanks for speaking to me, and rang off.

The doctors say while it may take me a week or two to stop coughing, I should start to feel better in a few days.

I’m absolutely incredulous at the amount of time it is taking to move out of this phase. I can tell you how I got here: physically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, philosophically, sociologically, economically… I have done the reading as a means of trying to find my way out of it.

The last time I healed an emotional wound I looked back and I could list accomplishments like ‘got a degree’. I clearly could not have been doing ‘nothing’ in that time. It’s just that then, as now, I did it all in a haze of dissociation. I was completely overwhelmed by my circumstances whilst refusing to bow to them.

I have to some extent let life wash over me. Sometimes believing that I was giving myself a kind of spiritual once over. I think that’s probably bunkum. I’m just immensely lonely, and very sad. I can not tolerate how deeply I feel that life is passing me by. One year rolls into the next, and I think with each passing year, “you’ve never been so fat”, “so lacking in energy”… and think of all the things that I could have done.

I was the first in my family to get a degree, I was the first to have a career, I went sailing, I engaged in the arts, I actively threw off the shackles of poverty and went to get mine. And now capitalism is functioning like it aught to, the middle and upper classes are squeezing me out of work and maintaining their privilege. And I miss my life.

Knowing this is what’s happening doesn’t make it easier to cope. It highlights the injustices and reinforces my lack of confidence. It successfully gaslights me into compliance. I am the only one complaining. The only other person that understood how this feels, declines to talk to me.

So here I am. Equally loathing myself for feeling sorry for myself, and trying to pep talk myself into taking the least awful routes out of this impasse. I already gave up on taking PIP to tribunal AGAIN, because of the fucking psych evaluation that I had done. The one that confirmed that other than depression (because of my circumstances) I am in fact perfectly sane.

In the long run, this long line of CPN’s and psychiatrist’s and counsellor’s stamp of sanity will be beneficial, but right now, it feels like chains. I am running out of ways to defend myself self against the social. I am living in terror that eventually they are going to sanction me, and that my worst fear will come true: I will end up homeless again.

I can’t handle the pride I feel, and the shame that lives with it. I hate to admit to anyone that knows me that I am out of work. It’s the worst kept secret I’m sure everyone knows, but it’s my Achilles heal. I got a degree, just to end up on the dole. Just who did I think I was anyway.

I was supposed to have a medication review for some anti-depressants that would not interfere with my IBS. A routine referral, has turned into a full psych evaluation. Thanks, tory government. Thanks.

After many years of managing my depression, anxiety and/or PTSD on my own, I’ve finally hit the wall I hit back at the beginning. How do I survive. Where do I draw from when the well is dry. I don’t know. I don’t. Let me tell you how it came to this…

I’ve been told by the government that I am well enough to work, but I know I’m not well enough to do the work I’m trained to do, and no one will employ me anyway. I look for work. As a dyslexic person, I find this very difficult. As a dyslexic person with mental health problems, it’s painful. Honestly: painful.

I broke down in my PIP assessment, not that you would know it according to the assessors write up. She was more interested in this (allegedly) massive IQ I have. I’m having to ask for a reconsideration. After only two days, they are ringing me and I don’t know why. That is hardly enough time to mount an appeal is it?

In December and January I had a ton of doctors appointments, and three were missed. Despite the fact that I did not DNA at least one of those appointments they kicked me off the service. They did this before I could appeal, despite the letter saying that I had time to appeal if I thought the decision was wrong.

The mental health team rang, to tell me they had cancelled my appointment and would rebook in a few months. I rang to tell them I didn’t have few months, in short. They then told me they wouldn’t see me if I didn’t have a doctor. I rang the doctor to complain and beg to be reinstated.

The practice manager said that they would bring it up with the doctors at a meeting. My mother and my nephew come to visit and my mum decides to have an alcohol induced break down. By all accounts, she was jabbing her finger at my brother and calling him by my name. My nephew witnessed this, and my brother opened whoopass.

I’m still ringing the doctors to find out why the practice manager has not been back in touch. My counsellor was away for a week and so called First Response, is unresponsive. What ever energy I gain, I lose. I take a step forward and then I’m plunged back into fuckery. I finally get through to the practice manager and she reveals she forgot to ring me back. And she’s been on annual leave.

They have discussed my case and have decided that I can appeal… by letter. I just imploded. Its like telling a wheelchair user there is pain relief available, but they have to get up and walk to the other side of the room to get it. They want me to write down what I have already told them three times. With each telling the injustice of the situation creates more distress and hopelessness. And now, I have to decide what appeal is more important, AND look for work.

I have to skip some steps, you wouldn’t believe them. Today, I rang the mental health team to let them know that I have a doctor and want an appointment. They said it would be months. I said I didn’t have months. One of the managers rang me within twenty minutes and I said I couldn’t go on, being managed off of lists because of my intelligence. She said it was time for me to have a proper assessment, and I laughed.

I told her that every assessment I have ends in reactive stress or depression, “go get counselling”, was it worth wasting everyone’s time. I said I never thought I would beg for medication, after refusing them for so many years, but that I was begging now. (SSRI’s do nothing for me, except give me a bunch of side effects). She said she thought it was time for a more in depth assessment, and that they would find a medication that didn’t fuck with my IBS.

This is a longer post than usual. I am quite agitated. My electronic world is beginning to impinge on my right to peaceful enjoyment. My stomach is in uproar: I do not know if this is anxiety, antibiotics I’m taking for a nasty water infection or the cream based raspberry compote I ate yesterday (it was tiny!).

I suspect it’s a little of all three, though I suffer the latter two with fortitude. I do not, however, suffer the former with any thing other than dread, anxiety, a sense of impending doom, the desire to flee conflict and the utterly infuriating insomnia as a result of mentally writing letters. Fine! said I, and roused myself from bed.

Time was when one could read ones emails on an evening and find nought but fun and smiles. Now it’s a Temple of Doom. The worst offender being The Letting Agents, but we’ll save them for last. Let us deal with a person who recently befriended me on-line; we play scrabble. As a result of our conversations, he says he would like to meet me.

Whoa. I did not sign up for this. What do I want? You might be satisfied about me as a person, but I remain unconvinced, even though you do pleasantly surprise me… He is the uncle of a friend of a friend, and when I approached the mutual friend about this, she spoke positively about him, saying she was meaning to introduce us as we have similar interests. Indeed we do.

But I’m not in a meeting people frame of mind. I’m in a paranoid and anxious frame of mind: unwilling to make myself feel vulnerable to any extent. I have enough going on with out adding ‘new people’ to the mix. To his credit, he hasn’t pushed since I said I would think about it, but today, I had to show him my feminist credentials. After I shrugged at his baiting and replied ‘three strikes and you get relegated’. He admitted to feeling a little hurt.

While I have no desire to hurt anyone – I do not have the desire to massage any mans wounded ego. Whether I like them or not. This is my motivation for all to witness: I am not allowing any form of external fuckery to dominate my life.

Which brings me on to the woman who is coordinating volunteers at a place I have expressed interest in. I have the feeling that as a former volunteer she is eager to show that she has the capacity to lead and coordinate. However, she is going to have to apply her belt and braces approach elsewhere. I find a phone call, a text message and two emails somewhat excessive. If I have missed a call, an email OR text would suffice. Please, step back, sister.

And then The Letting Agent. Dear Letting Agent, Section 27 – 33 of The Housing Act 1988 (Right to peaceful enjoyment). This is the thing that is keeping me awake. This is the thing that is creating an undue sense of insecurity. Today, I received two emails, from two different people, seeking access to my property on two separate days one week apart. One of the emails states the landlord will let himself in if I aren’t home.

No. He will not. No, no, no no. Hey nonny no!

They want to inspect the property, as is their right. Only, this will be the fourth inspection in 17 months. Enough. If The Landlord wants to remortgage the property, he can have the valuation done while I am present. There is no reason in my mind why they can not combine the two.

Before you get to thinking that is all… When I first moved in, I had a subcontractor try to gain access to the property, both with out permission and with out warning. Worse, I was in bed at the time, and in a state of dishabille had to call out to get him to stop trying to force entry. The door is not jammed, it is locked!

I thought that I had made myself clear at that point: I would always insist on Myself or an Agent Acting on My Behalf being present for any repairs, inspections or other requirements needing access (emergencies excepted as per The Housing Act 1988). I am therefore most upset to see in writing “the landlord will let himself in”. No. Just no.

Also, on the subject of inspections, it is not the job of contractors to carry out ad hoc inspections when they come to do a repair. I knew at the time that I should have raised a grievance, but you know, I’ve had a bit on. Furthermore, the contractor was asked to look at a none existent problem with damp. I have never had damp. I believe the previous tenant did, due to a hole in the roof, but it was successfully fixed.

What she is talking about is mold in the bathroom. Mold which I was told to leave untreated so they could check the progress of, and if necessary treat with another coat of anti-fungal, anti-mildew paint. Which I did. Which was then subsequently signed off as satisfactory. Which I am now worrying about.

This all needs to be put in a letter. But as several people have told me I seem angry, I am even more keen to get my tone right, lest it lead to eviction for antifuckingsocialbastardbehaviour. Of course I am angry, and legally, in this instance, I have a right to be, but still: I am tired of living embattled. I am tired of living under the threat of poverty (worse poverty) and homelessness.

I whole heartedly refuse to believe that my behavior is some how unreasonable, or unwarranted. I am feeling particularly vulnerable at present, and I do not have a constant ally on whom I can rely “to act as a buffer”. There’s just me and some boundaries. I am adamant they and I, will be respected.

Rate this:

You run out of steam. Where once it might have taken you 18 months, suddenly, it’s six weeks. Or worse, six days. The things you want to do are continually put aside in order to have the reserves to invest in your health and well being. The doctors appointments, the dole appointments, the job interviews…

You want to keep up with the house work, but it crowds you out. Moving the bedrooms round so you can minimize noise pollution from your neighbour is more important than washing up: because you need to sleep. The tablets the doctor prescribed affect other health conditions, so the ten day respite you’ve had, becomes a painful nightmare and the sleep train is brought to a halt.

You phone a ‘help line’, who is there to support you in your time of need… They fire off so many questions it’s plain they are not listening to your answers: they have their own agenda. Basically, that’s to punt you onto the online forums so you can have a whinge and a moan with other people in your situation. No thanks. With my level of skill and self awareness I become an unpaid support worker. Fuck you, pay me.

Having a minor panic attack you phone the Samaritans and hope to god that you get to speak to someone who is not going to patronise you. GOLD!!! You strike gold. This woman is clearly born into money, but she has empathy in spades. She’s intelligent and humorous and sees you. I mean, she really did see me. I felt held. I felt encouraged. I felt less of an alien for her observation of “You’re clearly quite cultured”.

I have described myself as a working class person with middle class tastes. I internalize a lot of snobbery and inverse snobbery and all kinds of other class war, class consciousness issues. I am pained sometimes by the things I like. The things that I am unable to access, to participate in, and enjoy guilt free. If I had money, these pleasures would not bring pain. It’s perverse.

Then you start to thinking about what kind of pet project you have been and have become. I want to take this lady out of the equation, she was fully congruent, she knew some of the emotional battles I was going through if nothing else. And there have been poorer (in every sense) people than her to not get the fact that £3 to get to a free community event is not free.

I am not putting blocks in my own path. I can not afford to pay for clay. I can not afford to pay for travel to doctors appointments, let alone social gatherings for the poor and dispossessed. And I do want to go, I do want to engage, but it takes energy and money both of which are finite. If you work in support, can you be more mindful of the realities of the people you are trying to support.

Rate this:

As I sink into yet another abyss, I reach out to support agencies for help. I hear the same refrain again and again. “Step back”, “Be kind to yourself”, “Take it easy”, “You’ve been through more in 5 years than some have in decades, don’t put so much pressure on yourself”. This is victim blaming. It’s not often I identify as a victim. But I feel it so keenly at the moment.

The pressure is not coming from within me: it is external to me and is being exerted on many thousands of people. Some of whom have buckled under the weight and have taken their own lives.

I have been close.

I am close.

I am tired.

As a person being forced to look for work that she is not well enough to do, I am being persecuted by the state. Why? Because I am poor. I can not afford to recuperate with out state assistance. As I try and address the mess that led to this disaster, I have to search for work, under the threat of losing what little money I have. This is tantamount to financial abuse.

I have worked. I have worked hard. I have paid taxes. I have raised myself up, from my externally perceived humble beginnings, educated myself, and the reward for my self sufficiency is victim blaming and abuse. Even in my addled state, I can provide better support for myself, than the agencies that I have reached out to for assistance.

Even, as the pressure mounts, and my myriad low level illnesses conspire together to create the impression that I am going to die from anxiety, I am best placed to help my self. All I need is time, or money, or a little of both. Instead, what time I might have is being permanently diverted to other less deserving things. Or more deserving but ought not to be.

Such as : Have I enough food to eat; Can I cover my rent this month; Is buying this cheap food worth the resulting pain I will end up in; Am I going to pull another muscle if I walk to the doctors and back; Will I sleep tonight; Can I squeeze another few wears out of these jeans before they finally give in.

What absolutely makes me howl, is the fact that a woman of my age, and my size being actively discriminated against in the work place, in one of the most underprivileged cities in the UK is being forced to look for work for people who will not employ her. Take my ‘free to them’ labour, yes, but not employ me for remuneration.

Where exactly am I supposed to take refuge in this mess? Am I being mindful they ask. Are you fucking kidding me? I am nothing but mindful. ‘You’ tell me? You keep telling me about how self aware I am… AM I MINDFUL? I am too mindful. I am too keenly aware of what is happening to me, and completely unable to do anything about it. This way madness lies.

Sometimes, mindfulness, in your secular sense of the word is a middle class luxury. It is a kind of mindfulness that I can not afford.

And the patronizing! Dear god above have some small mercy on me. Someone praised me learning to make my own clothes. This, I am told, is mindful. Well, it may be, if I could actually get on. Only I’m so sleep deprived that I can not follow the instructions and I dare not use the machine for fear of stitching over my fingers.

Something terrible happened yesterday.
I don’t want to talk about it today.
I’m at a friend’s cat sitting.
I’m in a lot of pain; physical and emotional.
A friend wants to know if I need anything, I already said what I needed, I’ve been saying it for months.
I look at my friend’s house and I’m transported to desperately sad and unhappy times.
Every surface is covered. Every surface has something on it. Every. Surface.
There is no view.
I think I’m allergic to her house as much as I am her cat.
I can’t believe the years I have lost to my shit.
All of it, physical and emotional.
Other people could see it, but I couldn’t.
Or at least I did not want to.
Why?
Because I was so very sad, and lonely.
Sometimes I think I haven’t moved on at all, but when I look back to yesterday, I think I’m starting to win.
It’s my time to win.
I so desperately need to travel, it’s killing me staying put. I don’t know how to make it happen, but I have to try find a way. Especially before the world implodes. Honestly, I’m really feeling the political disasters presently.
I feel like I’m in a race against time.
Only this isn’t as much fun as crystal maze.
My pain killers are kicking in now.
I hope I can sleep.
I’m wondering if I have enough masochism left in me to spend another night.
Someone called to invite me to a writing course, I can’t believe the range of emotions swirling around this one.
What is my main aim?
Freedom!
Does writing set me free, or does freedom give life to my writing.
I think we all know the answer to that.

I’ve been working very hard with a counsellor over the last six months or more and just as I was beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, the rug was pulled out from under me. The service I have been using had its funding cut and as a result, I have lost my counsellor.

The things I have been tackling have been so overwhelming that my brain shuts down and I have been almost fainting. Sometimes, I wish I had fainted, it’s a hugely exhausting process to try and navigate. Things that have been suppressed for so long have been making themselves front and centre and I have had no choice but to take them on, or be consumed by them.

I’m glad though, because working on these issues means I get to deal with the aching loneliness that I feel every day. I get to work on the tension that is so bad, that I am pulling leg muscles just walking down the street. I had no idea, that my stomach problems were rooted in my past trauma. And while most people might have said, “No Shit, Sherlock”, I genuinely thought that my jaw clenching was ‘because’ of my teeth aching, not the other way round.

The idea that you have to love yourself before anyone else can has always infuriated me. What the fuck do you do if you don’t know what love is? We all think we do, but when asked to describe it, we can not. I’m going for these things: trust, respect, tenderness, presence. When I can give these things to myself, in the same way that I used to be able to give these to other people, then I think I will have cracked it.

Recently, my relationships with other people have been rupturing. I’m so tired of putting on the happy mask everyday. The more I change (and reveal myself), the more people ‘reveal’ themselves to me. Sometimes, people have been real arseholes, even friends that I’ve had for decades. Sometimes, it’s become apparent that I haven’t the necessary strength needed to maintain friendships with people who to be frank, are just as needy as I am.

I’ve also been getting used to the idea, that not all friendships last forever, which is news to me. I never really knew what a friend is, or what one does. Who teaches you this stuff? Honestly, if you know, tell me, cos I feel like I have to go back to school. Some friendships might be on hold while I try figure out who the fuck I am, I’d hate to hurt someone while I’m writhing about inside myself this way.

It’s my 40th this year and my mum keeps asking me what I want. I’d like to tell her I want my mum back, and I’d like to see my compassion and humour return. I want my ‘bounce’ back. I reckon I’m going to stick to a picnic and two tickets to the opera though. That may be more realistic for now. Maybe by patching together some more positive memories I can build a past I can look back on with some happiness.